Uninviting weather may ruin a hiker's day out, but it offers many great opportunities for a photographer. Combine trekking with picture taking and you should not fall short of satisfaction in any weather. Well, almost.
Rain
Unless you are in a downpour, rain can improve your photographs in several ways:
· it adds more detail and texture into a scene
· it also creates more saturated colours, which can be further enhanced with a polarising filter
· macro-photographs of raindrop-covered flowers are rewarding subjects to snap.
If you do end up in a heavy rainstorm, make the rain the theme of your picture. Choose a dark background and play with shutter speeds to freeze rain droplets or record them as streaks.
You will soon find yourself swallowed up by myriad good opportunities, but do not forget to protect your photo equipment from swallowing the rain. A plastic bag, spare gaiter or shower cap will do the trick.
My wife and friend climbing towards the summit of Mt Tomuraushi (Japan). Snow and fog made me compensate exposure by about +2/3
Snow
Snowflakes can brisk up an otherwise dull scene. Select a dark background to visualise them, or use a flash unit to add artistic feeling.
Experiment with shutter speeds to accentuate the motion of falling flakes. This will largely depend on how fast the snow is moving and on the focal length of your lens; the starting point could be somewhere around 1/15 for 50mm lens and ?standard? snowing.
Bear in mind, the highly reflective snowy scene is likely to send your camera light meter haywire. It is advisable to open up about one stop to compensate for it. Again, bracketing is a clever thing to do.
Kyoto, Japan
Fog and mist
The evenly diffused light in foggy situations creates an emotion-evoking atmosphere. Sunlight making its way through misty woods is exceedingly photogenic. If there is no sun at all, try to make the subject of interest stand out in the foreground with the background blending in haze.
Be wary, fog may fool your light meter and result in underexposed images. Therefore, opening up about one stop and bracketing is highly recommended.
If rain or fog are spoiling wide-angle perspective, think in details. Put your macro or long lens on and look for water droplets on flowers, leaves, moss or webs; look up interesting texture of tree bark or rocks.
Rua Reidh, Scotland
Capture wind movement
Set your camera on a tripod and dial a long shutter speed to add a touch of dynamics
to your picture. If the light is too bright for long exposure, use a slower film
or apply a neutral density filter. Make sure there is a footing in the frame that
will stay still even in the strongest gale and make the subject for viewer's
eyes to rest on.
Use tripod
As a rule of thumb, the shutter speed limit for hand-holding camera is 1/focal length of the lens. For a standard 50mm lens, 1/60sec is about the edge to get pin-sharp pictures; for tele-lenses, you will need even shorter exposures. Since bad weather often means subdued light, you will frequently come close to or beyond your hand-holding capability. To be able to shoot a quality low speed film with decent depth of field, a tripod becomes imperative.
Carbon tripods may be a good choice for people on the track as they are 30% lighter than their aluminium counterparts and will reduce your load by a few pounds (but your bank account by many more, though).
Remember, the most dramatic lighting comes shortly before or after a storm. Enjoy bad weather!
